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EMFfringe: REDBIRD ROUND: An Evening in the Round with songwriters Alice Gerrard, Laurelyn Dossett and Diana Jones

Presented by Eastern Music Festival at Triad Stage at the Pyrle Theater

December 9, 2009

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EMFfringe in the fall Wednesday • December 9 • 7:30pm REDBIRD ROUND: An Evening in the Round with songwriters Alice Gerrard, Laurelyn Dossett and Diana Jones OPENING NIGHT OF A LIMITED ENGAGEMENT Free parking and easy access from the Greene Street parking deck. Alice Gerrard is a talent of legendary status. In a career spanning some 40 years, she has known, learned from, and performed with many of the old-time and bluegrass greats, especially her groundbreaking collaboration with Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens during the 1960s and 70s. The duo produced four classic LPs (reissued by Rounder and Smithsonian Folkways on CD) and influenced scores of young women singers. Alice in turn, has earned worldwide respect for her own important contributions to the music as a singer and songwriter, as the founder of the Old-Time Herald magazine, for her advocacy of traditional music, and for the work she has done with traditional music as a musician, record producer, and documenter. It all started when the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music changed her life back in 1959...she's been writing new chapters ever since. Songwriter Laurelyn Dossett is bringing Appalachia, banjos and folklore themes to new audiences as a unique collaborator in dramatic theater and symphony projects. She lives and writes in the piedmont of North Carolina, and her songs tend to reflect the stories of the region, both traditional and contemporary. She co-founded Polecat Creek with singing partner Kari Sickenberger, and has partnered with playwright Preston Lane on four successful plays featuring regional folklore and original music. One of these songs, "Anna Lee" was featured on Levon Helm's Grammy-winning record, Dirt Farmer. She is also a regular performer at regional music festivals such as Merlefest, a guest on the radio show Prairie Home Companion, and most recently, a writer and performer with the North Carolina Symphony. She is the 2009 recipient of the North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship for songwriting. Diana Jones' songwriting has a powerful connection to the sounds of old-time Appalachia. One of her songs, "Henry Russell's Last Words," has been recorded by Joan Baez, while another, "If I Had a Gun," has been recorded by Gretchen Peters. Diana's own versions of those songs can be heard on her new album, released on Proper Records, "Better Times Will Come," an ambitious effort that consolidates and extends the leap forward of her previous recordings. According to the New York Times "...Better Times Will Come, her unvarnished new album, marks both the culmination of this process and the arrival of a fresh and distinctive voice....She sings of the hard times, murderous urges and chilling loneliness that haunt the old Anglo-Celtic ballads but, with one exception, sets her plain-spoken narratives resolutely in the present..."